Well, this is just a little bit of a rant. Really though, I just want to see if I'm the only one who's getting frustrated at this, or if others agree with me. Here goes...

It seems like this year, older devices are getting outdated quicker than ever. Maybe I just didn't pay attention last year. Within less than 2 months of the new iPod Touch being released, it seems like most developers have dropped support for the Touch 4G, and in many cases, the iPhone 3GS and 4. Now, this doesn't always bother me, because I can see why in some cases this is necessary, but in some cases, it's just silliness.

Why is it that I can run Gameloft's Modern Combat 3 on my iPod Touch 4G, smooth as butter, but I'm told that Bastion is not compatible with my device. Seriously? You're saying it takes more RAM to run than MC3? Also, why can I play Rage of the Gladiator on my Touch 4G, but Alpha Dog Games says Wraithborne won't run on it (I've tried it too, crashes every time). I have a very hard time believing Wraithborne requires more RAM than RotG. (Apologies if RAM is the wrong terminology...)

Unfortunately I am seeing a trend here in developers. It seems like no one is optimizing games and working hard to make the resource management good for old devices. Tons of games are crashing on my devices that should not be crashing, if the developers had just utilized good resource management.

Of course, I could (actually, I have) just go out and order a new device to keep up with the times. But here's the problem I foresee: If developers keep making non-optimized games, soon they're going to be limiting themselves in what they can do. A game with good resource management can be pushed graphically, a whole lot farther than one without.

I'm really tiring of seeing games that are released half-baked with bugs, and crashing on older devices. Even the wonderful ARC Squadron (which does offer 4G support) crashes very often. Seems to me like good resource management could solve most of these problems. It almost seems like developers are getting lazy simply because "they can". We have some very high powered devices now (iPhone 5), but that's no excuse to not optimize games and implement good resource management.

Okay, rant over. Sorry if I worded anything wrong. I ain't no developer, nor do I claim to be. If I am totally off, and have no idea of what I am talking about, then let me know. I will shut up and won't bring this up again.

I would like to know if I'm alone in thinking this though. Am I crazy? Or am I right?

All I can say is, MC3 loads pieces of a map at a time that you can see, Bastion on the other hand loads the entire map, narration and so on. Plus the art work in bastion is really amazing. So yes it is true, iPhone 4 CAN'T run it.

One thing I'll tell you is that the difference when you upgrade is night n day. Why should devs limit the full potential of their games in order to support old units? That would defeat the whole point of having more powerful hardware available.

Lastly, you are neither a programmer nor game dev, so how would you know what it REALLY takes to make a game not crash?????

All I can say is, MC3 loads pieces of a map at a time that you can see, Bastion on the other hand loads the entire map, narration and so on. Plus the art work in bastion is really amazing. So yes it is true, iPhone 4 CAN'T run it.

One thing I'll tell you is that the difference when you upgrade is night n day. Why should devs limit the full potential of their games in order to support old units? That would defeat the whole point of having more powerful hardware available.

Lastly, you are neither a programmer nor game dev, so how would you know what it REALLY takes to make a game not crash?????

First, you are correct, I do NOT know what does and doesn't make a game crash. Hence I used the wording I did "I have a hard time believing" instead of just saying they can and should.

Also, I do agree, I hate limiting devs to old hardware. In the case of huge games with large graphical advancements (Real Racing 3), I can totally understand dropping 4G support.

On that note, what you said agrees exactly with what I am saying. Since Bastion loads the whole map at once, why not make it load in pieces, so that it could support older devices? I have no idea how to implement that, and maybe it would just make things worse...

But if it did work, they sure would sell a LOT more copies being 4G compatible.

Some devs prefer to offer a total package to the new devices only instead of making a mediocre version available for older devices and I must say I agree with them. Playing RR2 on an iPhone 3GS is very painful when compared to an iPhone 4S. So it makes sense why many devs will not waste the time to downgrade their game just so it can run poorly on low end devices and at the end only to reap tons of negative reviews from those buyer because the game crashes a lot on top of complaint of why it lags and why many graphical effects are missing.

Well, this is just a little bit of a rant. Really though, I just want to see if I'm the only one who's getting frustrated at this, or if others agree with me. Here goes...

It seems like this year, older devices are getting outdated quicker than ever. Maybe I just didn't pay attention last year. Within less than 2 months of the new iPod Touch being released, it seems like most developers have dropped support for the Touch 4G, and in many cases, the iPhone 3GS and 4. Now, this doesn't always bother me, because I can see why in some cases this is necessary, but in some cases, it's just silliness.

Why is it that I can run Gameloft's Modern Combat 3 on my iPod Touch 4G, smooth as butter, but I'm told that Bastion is not compatible with my device. Seriously? You're saying it takes more RAM to run than MC3? Also, why can I play Rage of the Gladiator on my Touch 4G, but Alpha Dog Games says Wraithborne won't run on it (I've tried it too, crashes every time). I have a very hard time believing Wraithborne requires more RAM than RotG. (Apologies if RAM is the wrong terminology...)

Unfortunately I am seeing a trend here in developers. It seems like no one is optimizing games and working hard to make the resource management good for old devices. Tons of games are crashing on my devices that should not be crashing, if the developers had just utilized good resource management.

Of course, I could (actually, I have) just go out and order a new device to keep up with the times. But here's the problem I foresee: If developers keep making non-optimized games, soon they're going to be limiting themselves in what they can do. A game with good resource management can be pushed graphically, a whole lot farther than one without.

I'm really tiring of seeing games that are released half-baked with bugs, and crashing on older devices. Even the wonderful ARC Squadron (which does offer 4G support) crashes very often. Seems to me like good resource management could solve most of these problems. It almost seems like developers are getting lazy simply because "they can". We have some very high powered devices now (iPhone 5), but that's no excuse to not optimize games and implement good resource management.

Okay, rant over. Sorry if I worded anything wrong. I ain't no developer, nor do I claim to be. If I am totally off, and have no idea of what I am talking about, then let me know. I will shut up and won't bring this up again.

I would like to know if I'm alone in thinking this though. Am I crazy? Or am I right?

Thanks for listening.

It is moving faster, I think. When the 3gs came out, I remember many games being updated (or 2 versions released) to add special effects on the 3gs without dropping support for older models. Space Miner was a big one that could be played, and looked great, on my ipod touch 2 1/2, but had 3gs only effects.

Part of the problem is, as you stated, the RAM issue. It's also a reason I'de never buy an ipod again. They lag behind the same series iphone, usually. It isn't as if RAM would cost a lot of money either. Then you also have the splintering of the ipad lineup, etc.

Yeah thats sad.thats why I sold my ipod 4 and will be getting ipod 5 on my birthday next week .

Sounds good ! Enjoy ! I recently sold my ipod touch 4th gen and bought a 5th gen. Its great, plus i can play so many more games without crashes !!

Its frustrating the way Apple keeps churning out new products all the time, but the ipod 3rd gen is quite old now so i can see why devs might not make apps which work perfectly on that anymore.

One 'good' thing is when you sell your ipod you often get a good price for them as Apple products often keep their price as they dont often allow shops to sell them cheaper.

I find the ipad more frustrating, i had a new ipad in August for my birthday, 2 months later another ipad is out and news that another will be out early next year as well possibly ?

But thats the way it goes with technology, mentioned it before back in the early 90's a new PC was coming out every few months it seems (from 300 mhz to 600mhz to 900 mhz to 1 ghz) etc. As Apple are making so much they'll regularly release new products and iOS devs have to keep up. Frustrating but not a surprise really

If we didnt keep buying the new products asap Apple might wait longer between new versions. But look at people who 'have' to have the latest iphone when their current one is fine ? Same for IAP's, as long as people keep buying them IAP will be around.

Part of the problem is, as you stated, the RAM issue. It's also a reason I'de never buy an ipod again. They lag behind the same series iphone, usually. It isn't as if RAM would cost a lot of money either. Then you also have the splintering of the ipad lineup, etc.

This.

Back when I bought my 2nd gen iPod Touch, it ran circles around the iPhone as it had the same amount of RAM but wasn't running the phone/etc software.

Since then each generation of iPhone has had twice the RAM as the iPod Touch and there's no way I would go back.

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